1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing monolithic ceramic electronic components.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, as electronic devices (e.g., cellular phones and portable music players) have become smaller, monolithic ceramic electronic components (e.g., monolithic ceramic capacitors) included in such electronic devices have become smaller rapidly.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 61-248413 describes a method for manufacturing monolithic ceramic capacitors. In this method, a mother ceramic laminate having conductive films for forming internal electrodes therein is pressed and cut into strips by moving at least one cutting blade in a thickness direction, the cutting blade being positioned along a first direction perpendicular to the thickness direction. Then, the resulting strips are further pressed and cut by moving at least one cutting blade in the thickness direction, the cutting blade being positioned along a second direction perpendicular to both the thickness direction and the first direction. Thus, main bodies of electronic components substantially in the shape of a rectangular parallelepiped are obtained.
In recent years, in an effort to improve the performance of monolithic ceramic electronic components, the thickness of ceramic layers between first and second internal electrodes has been reduced. However, when the method described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 61-248413 is used to manufacture monolithic ceramic electronic components having thin ceramic layers, a short circuit tends to occur between the first and second internal electrodes.